


spirit, that made those heroes dare: in defense of the gryffindor boys

by ShanleenKinnJaskey



Series: this strand of DNA between us [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: And Hufflepuffs are honey badgers, Anti-Ron Bashing, Bravery is a choice, Character Study, Courage, Different Definitions of the Same Word, Emotion is not weakness, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Growing Up, Gryffindor Pride, Gryffindor/Slytherin Inter-House Relationships, Headcanon, Inter-House Friendships, Introspection, M/M, Not hatin' on them for once, Ravenclaw's also awesome, So's Slytherin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-18
Updated: 2015-12-26
Packaged: 2018-05-06 17:27:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5425607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShanleenKinnJaskey/pseuds/ShanleenKinnJaskey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Let's talk about the other four boys who Harry Potter shared a dorm room with for six years, shall we?</p><p>I want to talk about Dean Thomas, the muggleborn who lived in a dungeon with a goblin and a wandmaker for months, who looked at a blond girl who landed in the dungeon with them and handed over one of their blankets with a grim smile. I want to talk about the boy who ended up marrying his best friend because he'd ended up falling in love with him.</p><p>I want to talk about about Seamus Finnegan, who after all was only a boy. I want to talk about a boy who grew up with a mother who loved him, a boy who listened and trusted her because she was wise and caring and <em>his mother.</em></p><p>I want to talk about Ron Weasley, who stayed by Harry's side through thick and thin and never gave up.</p><p>I want to talk about Neville Longbottom, the pureblood who everyone treated like a squib. I want to talk about a boy that everyone shunted to the side, the boy who everyone saw as powerless and a nuisance, the boy who sat there in a class for <em>seven years </em>with a teacher that was his greatest fear.</p><p>I want to talk about courage.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. love: in defense of Dean Thomas

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dirgewithoutmusic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dirgewithoutmusic/gifts), [tigriswolf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigriswolf/gifts), [Herald_of_Dreams](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Herald_of_Dreams/gifts).
  * Inspired by [loony: in defense of luna lovegood](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2802287) by [dirgewithoutmusic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dirgewithoutmusic/pseuds/dirgewithoutmusic). 
  * Inspired by [ugly: in defense of pansy parkinson](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2330390) by [dirgewithoutmusic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dirgewithoutmusic/pseuds/dirgewithoutmusic). 



> Title is from "Concord Hymn" by Ralph Waldo Emerson.
> 
> Hey, personally I'm a Slytherin. I admire all houses equally, but I feel like Gryffindors both get villainized and, pardon the pun, lionized too often. I read dirgewithoutmusic's series "we must unite inside her walls or we'll crumble from within" and loved it to no end because of two reasons: one, the way she reimagined characters I either judged or didn't care about into ones full of life, and two, how they were all girls.  
> (Hardcore feminist here!)  
> However, I feel like there are many boys in the Harry Potter also got unfair treatment. We call Dean unimportant, cast Seamus as a traitor because of the way he didn't believe Harry in Book Five, bash Ron constantly, and overlook Neville as a person of his own and not just the could-have-been Chosen One.  
> This is my way of remedying that.

_"Not gold but only men can make_

_A people great and strong;_

_Men who for truth and honor’s sake_

_Stand fast and suffer long._

 

_Brave men who work while others sleep,_

_Who dare while others fly..._

_They build a nation’s pillars deep_

_And lift them to the sky."_

_-William Ralph Emerson,_ A Nation's Strength

 

**i.** courage

Let's talk about the other four boys who Harry Potter shared a dorm room with for six years, shall we?

Let's talk about boys who were called unimportant, traitorous, disloyal, and weak.

Let's talk about love, and loyalty, and choices, and defiance.

(Let's talk about heroism.)

Let's talk about how they all ended up in Gryffindor  _for a reason._

 

i. 

I want to talk about Dean Thomas, the Muggleborn who lived in a dungeon with a goblin and a wandmaker for months, who looked at a blond girl who landed in the dungeon with them and handed over one of their blankets with a grim smile. I want to talk about the boy who ended up marrying his best friend because he'd ended up falling in love with him.

Let's discuss how he wore the title of "mudblood" with pride, how his support never wavered, how even after war and tragedy and watching his friend Ted get slaughtered in front of him he never stopped believing that what they were fighting for was right.

Dean was the boy whose eyes never stopped shining no matter the horror he witnessed. He believed in people, and the goodness in them. He cared about everyone, all the kids in all four Houses.

At night during his school years when he got homesick he would crawl into Seamus' bed and curl up next to him, never shedding a single tear.

(Let's talk about how Seamus would let him.)

He was enthusiastic about everything, taking to football and Quidditch with equal fervor. He was the one who, throughout all the years he was there, always made a point to sit with the First Years at the beginning-of-the-year feast.

Let's talk about how when the Yule Ball was announced he headed straight to Seamus and asked him to it, his heart pounding in his chest the entire time. Not because Seamus was a boy, or because he was afraid of what everyone else would think, but because Seamus' friendship was the most important and cherished thing in his life and he didn't want to irrevocably damage it.

When Seamus blushed and said, "Yes," it was the best moment in Dean's life until then.

(Well, up until a minute later when he shared his first kiss with his best friend.)

Let's talk about how he could produce a Patronus but not a corporeal one and yet still tried to help everyone else who couldn't. Let's think about how he was in so many of Seamus' happy thoughts.

Let's talk about how Dean spent the Slug Club nights during his sixth year alternating playing Wizard Chess with Ron and pulling out the room's old record player to dance on socked feet with a grumbling Seamus before heading down to hang out with his other friends in the Kitchen.

Let's talk about how by the end of his sixth year he'd taught kids from all four Houses (including some reluctant Slytherins) how to play football.

While Harry Potter was doing heroic things, things that could get him killed, Dean cheered on the Quidditch team, kissed Seamus, and comforted other children just like him, homesick and lonely yet still bright-eyed and excited.

He became friends with Muggleborns and Halfbloods and Purebloods alike, joked around with Slytherins, helped out Hufflepuffs, and played games with Ravenclaws. He became friends with Hannah Abbott and Astoria Greengrass and Terry Boot, all of whom he would fight side-by-side with in the Battle of Hogwarts. He taught them about Muggles and their games, introduced them to Seamus and dragged them along to impromptu football games and Quidditch matches.

While Harry Potter was spying on Hagrid and Madame Maxine and losing his date and listening to Ron and Hermione's bickering Dean was [dancing](https://ladygeekgirl.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/119571_114982247___h204109_l.jpg) with Seamus, Astoria, Hannah, and even one silly time with Terry where they both spent the entire time laughing. He was singing along to Wizarding songs he didn't know, joking with his friends, and complimenting the girls' dresses. He was making a fool of himself and kissing his boyfriend and he loved every single second of it.

He ended the night with a kiss from his boyfriend and slept peacefully in his own bed.

When it came to the tasks, he and his friends cheered on Harry and Cedric equally- after all, a win for either of them would be win for Hogwarts.

 

During fifth year when Hannah was the only one out of the older three students to get Prefect none of them were jealous. Instead, when Hannah owled them the news, Dean, Astoria, and Terry all decided to bring her small gifts as congratulations. Dean brought a couple of old history textbooks of his mom's which he thought Hannah might enjoy, Astoria got Hannah a new set of trowels for Herbology, and Terry bought her and the rest of them ice cream at Fortescue's to celebrate. Hannah blushed and accepted their gifts and congratulations.

When Zacharias Smith walked by and sneered at little Astoria's green and silver hairband, Terry, shy Terry, was the one to glare him down.

Dean smiled at him and took another spoonful of the sundae he was sharing with Astoria.

 

Astoria couldn't join the D.A.- no matter how much she wanted to learn from Harry Potter and Hermione Granger, it would have been the ultimate betrayal of her Housemates, get her labeled too untrustworthy to associate with. Instead she waited for them in the kitchen on their normal Saturdays, waited for Terry, Dean, Seamus (who spent the evenings with them even after he'd reconciled with the other Gryffindors- he said the three of them were more fun and more interesting), and Hannah. They taught her Stinging Hexes and Disarming Spells and the Patronus Charm, and they smiled when they told her what memory she'd used to cast the shimmering silver snake that slithered through Dean's beagle's legs:

The Yule Ball, to which Terry had taken her as a friend, dancing with the three of them.

 

Let's talk about sixth year, when Dean went into Potions Class and was asked to smell the Amortentia. He leaned over the cauldron containing the strongest love potion in the world and, of course, smelled Seamus: the smell of Seamus' hair, grass after a football game, and Seamus' cologne. But he also smelled, faint underneath the powerful scent of Seamus, the polish Hannah used on her boots, Astoria's hair product, and the old books that Terry always carried around.

Love is not just romantic. Love is caring, and knowing someone like yourself, and evenings spent hanging out together.

When Hannah was pulled out of Herbology class sixth year to learn about her mother's death she didn't go straight home. She, their mother hen, waited by the painting of fruit for them with her bags. They all knew exactly where to go- years of meetings in the kitchen after dinners and classes

Dean and Seamus found her with red-rimmed eyes and dried tear tracks on her cheeks, hugging Astoria and Terry as if her life depended on it. For a horrible moment Dean had to imagine what it would be like to lose his mother and he shivered before he and Seamus walked over and joined in on hugging Hannah, on making her feel like she wasn't alone in the world.

Family is not just blood. Family is friendship, and shared hardships, and knowing you'll always be there for each other.

 

Astoria was in the Slug Club- Dean was not. He was a muggleborn, no connections except for friendship, and he stayed in the dorms the nights the Slug Club met and hung out with Seamus and Ron. Then, when it was over, he and Seamus would make their way downstairs to the painting by the kitchens and tickle the pear. They'd slip into the kitchen to meet up with Terry and Astoria and they'd listen to her ridiculous stories about the Slug Club while gorging themselves on chocolate.

Hannah was gone and they remembered why she was gone, but they were children. They gossiped and ate chocolate and focused on the positive instead of the negative.

They lived.

 

Hannah got on the train the next year, a hollow in her chest where her mother's memories once rested, and Dean didn't.

He ran, not because he was a coward, but because if he didn't he would have died.

There is a difference between being rash and being brave. Being brave is fighting for a cause. Being rash is dying for no reason, and Dean had so very much to live for.

 

When it came to fighting in the Battle of Hogwarts Dean drew his wand and headed into the chaos. He and Seamus got separated early on, but let's ponder this image:

Astoria Greengrass, Slytherin headband worn proudly over her ordinarily pristine brown hair that was now covered in soot, getting off a spell at a Death Eater facing Dean.

Terry Boot, lip trembling but aim dead on, wading into the fray at Astoria's side.

Hannah Abbott, the eternal protector and mother hen of them all, face scratched by an errant Cutting Hex and protecting all four of them with Protego spells.

Might and cunning. Honor and integrity. Loyalty and steadiness.

Bravery is a choice, and they chose it while still upholding the values of their own houses.

(After the battle, during different times in their futures, separate Gryffindors would walk up to each of the three of them and tell them that they should have been in Gryffindor, that they were brave.

Terry would politely reject the idea and wax on about integrity and honor, his voice never raising above the volume he used in the library.

Hannah Abbott would shake her head, a small smile on her face, and tell the speaker that being brave is useful, but everyone needs a home and that was what she had provided for her friends over the years. She had been kind, and fair, and loyal, and steady, and that was why yellow and black was associated with home.

Astoria would quirk an eyebrow, give a very unladylike snort, and return to tea with her husband. There was a reason why, years after leaving Hogwarts, she would always wear the silver and emerald dragon earrings that Dean, Hannah, and Terry had helped Draco pick out as a courtship offering, and it wasn't just because they were pretty.

There are many different kinds of strength.)

 

When it came to Hannah's wedding Dean, Astoria, Terry, and Seamus all sat in the front row with Luna and Millicent, who were there for Hannah's groom Neville. They hooted and hollered for Hannah and Neville and wished them good tidings with their marriage.

(This was also repeated with Dean and Seamus' wedding, as well as Astoria and Draco's. Terry never married so there was no story there, but all of the friends were there for the cermony announcing him a Charms Master.)

 

Let's talk about how Dean found his own courage not in acts of grand heroism or too-close-to-call Quidditch tournaments or fighting in far off wars but instead in the way the firsties' eyes shone with excitement when they walked into the Great Hall for the first time.

He found his courage in kisses snuck in between classes, in quiet evenings applying essence of murlap to the cuts on the back of Seamus' hands that read _I shall not be a pervert_ , and in the way Seamus always looked to him for advice and trusted every word he said even if he himself only half believed it.

He found his courage in Hermione's constant jabbering, in Neville's unwavering quiet support, in Harry's dedication to Quidditch, in Lavender's trust in Trelawney's predictions no matter how wrong they ended up being, in Ron's stories of a huge, loving family, and in Parvati's constant protectiveness of her sister.

He found his courage in Terry's familiar crooked signature on the paper titled _Dumbledore's Army_ , in the way Astoria came up to him their second year of being friends and said quietly, "I told my parents that I don't think Muggleborns are bad," and Hannah's excitement when it came to listening to Dean's stories about football and everything else Muggle related.

He found courage in love, and trust, and the quiet moments that make up the backbone of a life.

 


	2. loyalty: in defense of Ron Weasley

I want to talk about Ron Weasley, who stayed by Harry's side through thick and thin and never gave up.

Let's talk about how he stuck by Harry's side when he was accused of being the Heir of Slytherin, how every time Harry ended up in the Hospital Wing unconscious Ron was right there by his side. Ron's boggart, his greatest fear, was spiders but when Harry told him that they had to follow the spiders he went willingly.

When he was eleven he befriended a lonely boy on a train and ran empty-handed into a bathroom with a troll to rescue a girl who he thought was annoying. He sacrificed himself in the final move of a chess game, followed Harry down into the Chamber of Secrets, tried to protect his friends even after a dog had bitten through his leg. 

When Harry's name was pulled from the Goblet of Fire he didn't know what to think. Of course he thought, for awhile, that Harry had tricked his way in to getting his name called because there was  _no other way to do it._  He was  _fourteen,_ of course he got jealous, because Harry had known that all Ron had ever wanted was proving to everyone that he could do something right.

Let's talk about how he realized that Harry was right, and how he apologized, and how he never left Harry's side again until he placed the locket with the soul of the darkest wizard of all time around his neck and convinced himself that he  _wasn't enough._

I wish I could tell Ron that just because he was the youngest son, just because his best friends were the Boy-Who-Lived and the Brightest Witch of her Age, just because he couldn't read as fast and all he had was his wits and his loyalty didn't mean he wasn't brave in his own right.

Because Ron was the one who kept Harry and Hermione from falling through. He brought jokes, and chess, and Quidditch. He brought Wizarding fairytales and family to two kids who didn't have anyone else in the Wizarding World. He met an abused boy with Avada Kedavra eyes and a bullied girl with bushy hair and intelligence in spades and they became a family.

He was their best friend, the one who tempered Hermione's insanity and brought Harry out of the shell that the Dursleys had forced him into. He stumbled and fell, he screwed up, and he grew into a young man that they both cared deeply about.

He was the friend that Harry found under the lake.

(He was the thing Harry would miss most.)

He wouldn't let Harry go alone to the Department of Mysteries to save Sirius. He was there at Harry's side, getting attacked by Umbridge and brains and Death Eaters, and he was the one Harry trusted with the prophecy. The next year he spent the year making teenaged mistakes and falling in love with his best friend, but the entire time he was trying to comfort Harry and make sure that his house won at Quidditch. He was there by Harry's side when Dumbledore fell, and he swore never to leave him.

Try andtell me that Ron didn't love both Harry and Hermione, that he wasn't Harry's true friend and brother.

I  _dare_ you.

Let's talk about how Ron was willing to die for Harry, willing to do anything to help him succeed. Let's talk about months spent wallowing in regret and anger at himself as he tried to find a way back.

Let's talk about the light inside himself that guided him back.

There's a reason why Ron was chosen to be prefect, and it wasn't just because Dumbledore thought Harry had too much on his plate. It's because Ron made up for his lack of leadership skills in other ways: he was brash, and a bit less witty than Hermione, but he was brave, and loyal, and that's what counted.

It takes just as much courage to follow as it does to lead, and Ron followed Harry to the ends of the earth. 

Ron Weasley looked into the Mirror of Erised and saw success, but when the Sorting Hat was placed on his head Slytherin was not offered to him. No, Ron saw not success but _acceptance_ in the mirror. He saw a family proud of him, a world where he was not looked down upon for being the youngest son with no accomplishments to his name.

He, just like his best friends, just wanted to be accepted. Harry became a hero, Hermione the Brightest Witch of her Age, and Ron was their best friend.

After the war people asked for Harry's autograph, pushed Hermione's deals through the legislature, but Ron?

They called him Harry's shadow, Hermione's hanger on.

They compared him to his best friend and girlfriend, whispered that he would never be enough.

He heard them, and he tried not to cry.

(There are different kinds of cruelty. There is childish cruelty, the kind born of not knowing any better. There is evil cruelty, the kind that Death Eaters and Voldemort take pleasure from.

And then there is the sneaky kind of cruelty, the kind the travels in on whispers and snatched words and gossip. The kind that hurts like nothing else, because this pain cannot be healed by one of Madame Pomfrey's tinctures.)

Ron wanted to shout  _Look at my scars. I suffered along with Harry and Hermione, my brother died, I nearly died. I fought and I grieved and I suffered. What gives you the right to call me not brave?_ but he never did.

Ron had grown up. He was no longer the innocent boy who taught a new friend about chocolate frogs and ran into bathrooms trying to save girls from Trolls. He was a man who had seen war, and he had nothing to complain about.

Words? Nah, they were nothing compared to watching his brother die in front of him, the ghost of his last laugh on his face. He could take the cruel whispers.

 

There were evenings he spent with Neville, Luna, and their friend Millicent over a cup of tea, the warmth clearing away the ache in his bones. They told him not to listen to the gossip, the whispers- he knew who he was.

He would sip his tea and listen, but wouldn't absorb any of it.

Dean and Seamus would ask him about his proposal to Hermione, would show him pictures from Draco's first date with Astoria and go on and on about Hannah and Neville's wedding preparations. The normalcy helped a little, but not much.

Ginny would encourage him, Harry would reassure him, and Hermione would kiss him but it didn't help.

The person who really helped came as a surprise.

One day when he was sitting in the coffee shop and Draco Malfoy sat down across from him. "Weasley," he said, nodding politely at Ron.

"Malfoy," Ron acknowledged, no heat in his tone. Childish feuds had fallen away with the world- he no longer held a grudge against Malfoy. Malfoy had looked Harry straight in the eye, his Aunt Bellatrix right behind him, and denied that he knew Harry. That had earned Ron's grudging respect. No, Ron still didn't like Malfoy, but he didn't hate him either.

"So, Astoria tells me that Dean Thomas told her that you're believing the media's lies," Malfoy said conversationally, taking a sip of his tea.

Ron looked at Malfoy. His hair was brushed to the side, the ever-present gel from their school days gone. He looked less tense and uptight than he did in their school days, more relaxed with himself. "What lies?" Ron asked.

"That you're less valuable than Potter and Granger, that you aren't just as much of an idiot Gryff as they are." Somehow Malfoy managed to make "Idiot Gryff" sound like a compliment.

Ron shrugs. "So?"

" _So,_ of course you are. Does not being me or Pansy make Astoria or Millicent any less of a Slytherin? Is Lovegood not a Ravenclaw because she doesn't exactly fit the mold? Not all Gryffs are the Chosen One, Weasley, and though it pains me to say this, you're a hero in your own right. Dumbledore said it at the end of the year feast first year- Potter and Granger would have died down there without you. So get off your bloody arse and stop moping- you're a Gryff, alright."

Ron nods, smiling slightly for what feels like the first time in ages. "You're a git, Malfoy, but thanks."

"It's all Astoria's fault- you can blame her," Malfoy says, but the corners of his mouth quirk upwards.

"She's good for you."

"She really is."

(People can be cruel. Children can be cruel.

But there is such a thing as forgiveness and Ron understood its worth as well as anyone else, so when Malfoy dropped backhanded compliments into Ron's lap he smiled and accepted them.)

 

The years would pass and Ron would get married to Hermione. They would have two beautiful children. He'd name Rose after the flowers he'd proposed with and Hermione would name Hugo after one of her favorite book characters. He'd be an Auror with Harry and eventually, many years after their kids finally left the house, he'd retire and he and Hermione would settle down in a small cottage near the Burrow.

And that was enough for him.

 


	3. choice: in defense of Seamus Finnegan

I want to talk about about Seamus Finnegan, who after all was only a boy. I want to talk about a boy who grew up with a mother who loved him, a boy who listened and trusted her because she was wise and caring and  _his mother._  

Let's talk about how he never meant to be malicious, how he was scared and believed his mother, and the newspapers, and everyone he knew because he was searching for an answer. Let's talk about how the only words he had to go on that Voldemort was back were Harry's, a boy he knew and cared about but who was known for doing pretty insane things.

(His mother was usually right anyway- she was a Ravenclaw, after all.) 

Let's talk about how when he found out he was wrong, he admitted he was wrong and apologized. He joined the D.A. with Dean and he pushed himself hard to earn the forgiveness of those who saw him as a traitor.

(He wasn't a traitor- he was a  _scared little boy._ )

When they went to cast their patronuses, his was a fox, a cunning trickster that could also be a teacher, a creature that knew its way around obstacles-a creature of quick thinking and adaptability.

Let's discuss what he thought of in order to conjure up a fox as his patronus.

(When an enchanted hat was plopped onto Seamus Finnegan's head, it didn't automatically say "GRYFFINDOR!". It saw his urge to prove himself, his thirst for friendship, and asked him not _Gryffindor?_  but rather  _Slytherin or Hufflepuff?_

Let's talk about how he looked over all the tables, remembering his mother and his father and the little boy on the train with an open face and warm heart, and thought,  _I want to be brave._

The wand chooses the wizard, but the wizard chooses the House.

Bravery is a choice, and Seamus Finnegan chose to leave behind his mother's house (Ravenclaw) and his aunt's house (Slytherin). He chose the house that wasn't offered, the house that a few minutes later the open-faced boy from the train joined.)

When he was called upon to try at casting a Patronus, Seamus thought of comforting Dean when they were firsties. He thought of accidental explosions that a quiet Neville brought in bubotuber pus to heal, games played between innocent second-years unaware of the horrors of the world, and of the roar of the crowd when Gryffindor won the Quidditch cup in their third year. He thought of pranks with Dean and the Weasley twins and the touch of Dean's lips to his.

He thought of laughter and bravery, mistakes and strength, and so many choices.

 

Let's talk about when Dean asked him out to the Yule Ball and Seamus kissed him.

(Let's ponder on how their roommates applauded.)

Let's talk about how they danced at the Yule Ball, grinning and giggling, how they ended the night with a quick kiss before falling asleep.

Let's talk about how Dean's friendship and love formed the fulcrum of Seamus' life, how even when Harry's friends abandoned Seamus for the first part of fifth year Dean stayed.

Dean kept kissing his boyfriend, not caring what everyone else would think. He invited Seamus to nights with Terry, Astoria, and Hannah, evening sessions in which they talked about everything and nothing. Even after Seamus reconciled with Harry he kept coming back to their nights together.

This was the friendship the hat had wanted to give him, and this was the love he'd found on his own.

 

Let's talk about how Seamus stayed at Hogwarts during his Seventh Year and fought, how he never became a General of Dumbledore's Army but instead just a soldier. He was a child but he was ready to fight. He went to school armed with a wand and a score of happy memories starring his friends. He fought with a trickster Patronus and a bag of Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes, fought with the cunning and the loyalty of the houses that the hat wanted to sort him into.

He fought for Dean, and for Luna, and for Ginny, and for everyone who had disappeared since sixth year or had been forced to run away. He fought for the children who were being forced to hide in the Room of Requirement. He fought for those who had died and those who still lived, but most of all he fought because seven years ago he'd sat on a stool in front of a hall of children, plopped an old hat on his head, and chosen to be brave.

Let's talk about how he became best friends with Colin Creevey while they were hiding in the Room of Requirement, how the sixteen-year-old confided in him and how Seamus guarded all the secrets he was trusted with.

(Let's talk about the boy who found Colin's body after the Battle and mourned.)

Seamus chose Gryffindor, but he was offered Slytherin and Hufflepuff for a reason. In a year spent in hiding, in fear, in darkness Seamus became cunning. He became a spy, utilizing Astoria and Neville's friend Millicent in Slytherin to know when he was free to pass above ground and gather supplies for those in the Room of Requirement, to know how to avoid the Carrows. Seamus became cunning but he also became hard-working, sacrificing sleep and food and time for the younger kids and the war.

Slytherins are more than ambitious, Hufflepuffs are more than friendly, and Gryffindors are more than rash.

Seamus was cunning, and he was hard-working, and he was brave.

Most of all, he  _never gave up._

There were nights when Seamus ducked into the Room of Requirement unable to stop his hands from shaking because he'd been Crucio-ed so badly. He learned more about the value of pain that year than he did about Defense the Dark Arts or Muggles. He cast silencio charms on himself during the night so that he wouldn't wake up the younger kids (who had so much worse to worry about- he could help himself) with his screams.

And yet every morning he would get up as if nothing was wrong and face another day, though his hands were trembling and his voice hoarse from screaming.

When Dean tumbled into the Room of Requirement along with a returning Luna and Ginny, the first thing an exhausted, war-torn Seamus did was catch Dean and wrap him in a hug. "I missed you," Seamus mumbled into Dean's shoulder, and Dean's shoulders shook as he let out something between a sob and a laugh.

"Missed you too," Dean replied.

They got separated during the battle but Seamus found himself fighting side-by-side with Dean's friends, who had become even more his in the year Dean couldn't be there for any of them, Susan Bones, who had helped him look after the younger kids over the past year, and Hermione Granger, who had returned with iron in her spine and eyes as hard as diamonds. He took out a Death Eater aiming at Millicent and Neville, was saved by a hex over his shoulder from Ernie Macmillan, and helped Luna defend an injured Cho Chang from a Death Eater.

He was not a General, but he was a soldier and a spy. He had spent the last year preparing for this moment, for this chance to fight back. When it was sprung on him with a iron Hermione and a scarred Dean and a Luna missing her turnip earrings, he took the war by the horns and refused to let it knock him down.

He was a child, yes, but somewhere in the last year he'd hit Wizarding majority and become a man. Seventeen is too early to die, but it's also too early to kill someone else. Seamus ran into the battle with a Hat's words pounding through his head, the faint feeling of his Dean's lips on his.

He was as much of a child as anyone else on the battlefield that night, and he fought for his home, his school, his family.

 

Years later Seamus would return to Hogwarts with a Dueling certification under his belt and McGonagall's permission to teach the upper years' Dueling Classes. Every morning he'd get up from the bed he shared with Dean, who was the new head of the Hospital Wing, kiss his husband, and go to work. He would go to classes, look at the open faces of his students, and think  _I never want you to ever have to go to war. I never want you to suffer like I did._

 

And he'd go to bed smiling because he'd seen a Gryffindor kissing a Ravenclaw, a Slytherin hanging out with a Hufflepuff and a Ravenclaw. As long as they kept doing what they were doing, a war would never happen again.

 


	4. defiance: in defense of Neville Longbottom

I want to talk about Neville Longbottom, the pureblood who everyone treated like a squib. I want to talk about a boy that everyone shunted to the side, the boy who everyone saw as powerless and a nuisance, the boy who sat there in a class for  _seven years_ with a teacher that was his greatest fear, the boy who walked into the Forbidden Forest at night with Hagrid and didn't shed a single tear.

Neville stood up to his classmates because he thought they were doing wrong and he wanted to prove that he could do something right.

When Seamus came back from Charms with soot and minor burns all up and down his face and arms, Neville quietly took him and Dean (who wouldn't release his hold on Seamus' hand) aside to the greenhouse and showed them the bubotuber plants and how they worked. He quietly told them all about the plants, pride showing through his nervous whisper. Neville wasn't very good at most of their classes, but Herbology he excelled in.

Let's think about how nervous he was to enter the Forbidden forest but still did it anyway.

Neville Longbottom was a child, just like Harry Potter, and then he was a teenager, just like Harry. _  
_

He did not come to Hogwarts where groups of people would automatically vilify and lionize him, expect him to be a hero- he came in tripping over his robes, losing his frog, and just generally causing a mess. First impressions are nasty little things, and that's how Hogwarts greeted him. That's the clumsy memory that most chose to hang on to when they thought of Neville Longbottom. Not the fantastic Herbology grades, or his support of Harry, or his victory at the Ministry- just little Neville Longbottom tripping over his too-long robes.

Children can be cruel, and Neville spent the next few years being called  _useless_  and  _squib_  and _'P_ _uff._

Everyone said Neville was a talentless Hufflepuff- he took it stride. Hufflepuffs were fair, and hard-working, and loyal. Neville would have been glad to be put in Hufflepuff, where everyone cared about one another and supported each other.

During his third year Millicent Bulstrode plopped herself down next to him while he was studying and said "So, Longbottom, mind telling me the answers to the Herbology homework?" He smiled and started in on a monologue while she stole bites of the biscuit he'd snuck in. When she nodded at the end and gruffly thanked him he didn't expect she'd be back, but he was still proud that he'd managed to successfully teach someone something.

(He wasn't  _completely_ worthless.)

When she returned the next week he grinned and offered her a bite of his biscuit.

It became their thing, meeting every week with Neville's snuck in biscuits and Millicent's Herbology textbook. It continued through that year the next year when Neville would meet Luna Lovegood and he would bring her too. It was quite a sight, the bare-footed turnip-wearing blood traitor and one of the future members of the Inquisition Squad sitting side by side and debating the existence of Nargles and Crumple-Horned Snorkacks, all the while discreetly eating burnt biscuits that Neville had brought in.

Neville knew things about Luna and Millicent that no one else did.

He knew that Millicent's family, the Bulstrodes, were not Death-eaters but rather a neutral family. He knew that underneath her cool, gruff demeanor she was scared, just like everyone else, but she chose to hide it better. Millicent was cunning, a perfect snake to the eyes of everyone, but Neville knew she was more than that. She wasn't a lion or a snake, no, Millicent was something much different, something uniquely admirable- like a dragon. She joined the Inquisition Squad to feed information to Neville and Luna, and she was the one who summoned Dobby (who she'd been told about by Neville, who'd been told by Harry in one of his stories of second year) and told him about what was going on. Neville knew that Millicent could see thestrals but chose to hide it because she knew what they meant.

He knew that Luna Lovegood, underneath her turnip-earrings and spiral glasses and bare feet, embodied what Ravenclaw stood for in every way, even if no one else could see it. Integrity and honor- Luna held these qualities in spades. He knew that she always wore one sock because her mother had, that she preferred apple juice to pumpkin and burned biscuits to fresh. He knew that Luna truly believed in the creatures she talked about, not because she was insane or innocent, but because her mother and father had told her about them.

He became friends with a snake and an eagle. He was a lion, so together that made them a griffin.

Millicent raised an eyebrow when he burst into giggles one day in library as he thought of that. She didn't say anything about it, just waiting for him to calm down.

"It's the Nargles," Luna whispered, and a corner of Millicent's mouth quirked upwards.

(Millicent knew that Neville's parents were in St. Mungo's because of Bellatrix Lestrange. She knew that he felt happiest and most comfortable in the greenhouses. She knew that he'd witnessed the death of his grandfather and that was why he could see thestrals. She knew that Millicent knew how Neville didn't want to be a hero, never had, but that he just wanted someone to tell him he was brave.

She thought that was silly, that Neville was more than brave in his own right, but she held her tongue. Slytherin  _did_ teach a few useful skills.

Luna knew that Neville was kind, and that he was loyal. She knew that he loved chocolate. She knew that he didn't belong in Hufflepuff, as he occasionally mentioned- his strength was brave, and constant, and it wasn't typical Hufflepuff or Gryffindor, but she knew that he was a lion, and that one day everyone else would see it.

Neville wasn't the only person who paid attention to his friends.)

 

When it came to Dumbledore's Army everyone was shocked to see Neville grow from the bumbling first-year he was to firing spell after spell to get it right.

(First impressions are nasty little things, remember? None of them paused to consider Neville in his second, third, or fourth years. Not even Ginny, who had seen him at the Yule Ball after he'd spent ages practicing, realized the man he was growing into. No, that distinction belonged to Luna, who smiled that distant smile of hers as he cast a successful Disarming Spell, and Millicent, who wasn't even in the room.

No, people saw Neville and they could only think of him tripping, stumbling over the hem of his robes as he lunged for his lost toad.

Millicent and Luna looked at him and they saw _strength_.)

 

Neville's happy thought was last year, when he was preparing to ask Ginny to the Yule Ball, and Millicent and Luna had taught him how to dance. Millicent had laughed, once, and had genuinely smiled at him a few times as she taught him to waltz. Luna taught him how to dance like a bird, to dance with the lights that floated above their heads.

His Patronus was non-corporeal.

(Millicent, in the times she practiced alone after hours, Neville and Luna teaching her what she could not learn from Umbridge, thought of afternoons in the library and burnt biscuits and distant smiles.

She managed a non-corporeal Patronus, and Luna and Neville grinned at her.

Luna thought of kind Snakes, smiling Lions, and Crumple-Horned Snorkacks.

Her Patronus was a rabbit, a creature equally at home on earth and in spirit.)

  

Let's talk about how Neville was able to pull the Sword of Gryffindor out of the Sorting Hat not because he was the only one who was willing to yell at Voldemort but because two years ago a girl with a faraway smile and turnip-earrings spent Saturdays teaching him about Thestrals.

Because one year ago he ran into the Department of Mysteries on the panicked words of a friend and confronted his parents' torturer.

Because three years ago a teacher tortured a spider in front of him and then afterward sat him down with a cup of tea and told him that emotion was not weakness- hatred, anger, and sorrow were just as powerful as love, politeness, and joy.

Because for the past year he'd become a General, not because he wanted to but because he would not let younger kids get hurt for nonsensical reasons.

Because four years ago a girl, his supposed enemy, had plopped herself down and listened to him talk, all the while stealing bites of his biscuit.

Because seventeen years ago his parents were tortured into insanity because they'd  _dared_ to go against the ideals of the families they were a part of.

Because six years ago he stood in front of his only friends and dared them to knock him down.

He did not pull that sword out nicely- he  _yanked_  it out, pouring out his anger and frustration and sorrow into the movement. He  _screamed_ at Voldemort, shouting out in defiance.

Defiance was what Neville was, in a word. When they told him he was talentless, a squib in wizard's robes, he got the highest Herbology grades in their year. When they told Neville that he was clumsy and friendless, he found his own friends in the corners of libraries and the crumbs of burnt biscuits. They said he would never amount to anything and he became one of the three Generals in Dumbledore's Army, and then, after Ginny and Luna both disappeared, became the sole leader of an army of desperate students.

Neville Longbottom became a leader without knowing of the prophecy that could have branded him the Boy-Who-Lived. He became a hero not because he was destined for it or because a headmaster trained him for the position but because Neville Longbottom had spent the last seventeen years of his life being underestimated and torn down and the only people who had ever cared about him were being hurt.

Neville had been spending so long defying everyone and their expectations that when Voldemort called on Neville to join him Neville had no trouble fighting back.

Let's talk about how later on in the fight he fought back-to-back with Millicent, who shot off Stunning Spells that hit his opponents as much as hers.

Let's talk about how he smiled at her at the end before they ran into the Hall after everyone else, and how she nodded grimly back at him.

Gryffindors and Slytherins weren't supposed to be friends, but let's talk about how as soon as Neville bought his flat in London Luna and Millicent were the first to visit, Luna in her turnip earrings and Millicent carrying a familiar tub of burnt biscuits.

Neville accepted the biscuits with a smile and invited them both in. They spent the afternoon eating the biscuits and discussing who they thought was going to be the new Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor. 

Luna, Millicent, and Neville- a Ravenclaw who believed in what had proven impossible, a Slytherin who would rather hang out with a Lovegood and a Longbottom than anyone who would advance her station, and a Gryffindor who'd fought side-by-side with a Slytherin.

Who could have predicted  _that_?

 


	5. heroism: in defense of Gryffindor

A hero is someone who is admired or idealized for courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities.

A hero doesn't need to be idolized by a crowd- they just need someone, a friend or enemy or something in between, to tell them that they're brave and admired.

A Gryffindor does not become a Gryffindor because they're rash or bold- they become a Gryffindor by choice. They choose to be brave, they choose to be noble.

Gryffindor is not synonymous to hero, and hero does not equal Gryffindor, but a true Gryffindor is noble, and chivalrous, and brave. 


End file.
